History Subreddit - Feedback and Suggestions

Hey everyone,

Reddit’s History section is structured around a few core topic clusters and two specific subreddits: "Military History and Technology" and "The American Civil War." This is my contribution toward refining and elevating both the general "History" hub and the "Military History and Technology" section.

Military History and Technology
The moderation team here consists of Pizvo, Scotsman, Zoran Oštrić, and Uncle Strile. For the longest time, the Military History and Technology section was either poorly managed or completely ignored—until Pizvo stepped in. He actually did some heavy lifting, cleaning up the constant stream of spam, off-topic nonsense, and the endless personal bickering that used to plague the boards. Unfortunately, Pizvo vanished without a trace almost as quickly as he arrived. Now, Military History and Technology has regressed to its usual state of chaos, where actual relevant content accounts for maybe 20% of the discussions at best. This is especially glaring in the most popular thread regarding the procurement of new fighter jets.
Moderation has basically devolved into this incredibly rare and wildly insufficient level of engagement from Uncle Strile. You can tell just how seldom Strile actually shows up to participate based on messages like these directed at him:

This discussion has hit rock bottom.

The last ten top-tier debaters on this platform.

I could probably show up to the club weighing 220 pounds, packed tight in buckets of manure.

From those Simmental cows over at the dairy farm...

Uncle Strile, give me a break... honestly, you and your moderation style are something else.

Maybe you should just switch over to growing something else.

A worm—something that requires absolutely zero mental effort.

Are you just sitting there handing out penalty points and bans?

Say it, Kuja.

And this is why the discussions on the aircraft procurement threads turn into absolute circus acts:

A textbook demonstration of the liberal mindset.
Are you some kind of leftist?

Classic jerk move.
So, did you go ahead and tattoo that flag on your Jeep too?

Did your liberal mindset just completely fall off a cliff?
If you're actually interested in knowing whether she has tattoos, just let me know and I'll tell you.

I have a suggestion regarding the "Military History and Technology" subreddit. It’s time we look into appointing a new moderator—someone perhaps a bit more hands-on than Pizvo. To be clear, we don't need a heavy-handed regime focused on handing out bans or playing digital police. That isn't the issue here. What we actually need is someone to consistently prune the petty personal bickering and the off-topic nonsense that litters the threads. This sub is popular, highly active, and genuinely fascinating. It just lacks a basic filter to keep the vulgarity and the spam at bay.

History.
Unlike Reddit, the History section sees a pretty thin crowd. If I had to put a number on it, you’ve got maybe ten regulars and another ten folks who just pop in every once in a while. Up until recently, the sub actually ran quite smoothly. You’d see the occasional report for bad behavior—usually involving someone citing Facebook posts as actual evidence, excessive swearing, or those tired arguments along the lines of "we didn't kill enough of you during WWII"—but Uncle Strile handled it all without breaking a sweat. Generally speaking, I haven't seen any major issues here.

Then two things shifted. There was this sudden surge of interest in the NBA-style alternative history discussions, and Zoran Ostric was promoted to moderator here on Reddit. Regarding those alternate history threads, the decision had already been made not to spin them off into their own dedicated sub-forum. In my view, under these circumstances, the moderators—Ostric and Strile—really ought to organize these topics into one, or ideally several, consolidated threads within the History section. The specific naming of these threads isn't my concern; I simply want to nudge the moderation team to take some kind of action. Right now, they aren't doing much of anything, and frankly, I fail to see how a debate about the Beatles in the Third Reich qualifies as actual History.
The second, and significantly larger, issue facing the History subforum is its "unique" moderation style, spearheaded by Zoran Ostric. The ease with which Ostric labels anyone with a differing opinion as a "fascist" or "Nazi" is truly remarkable. He actively participates in discussions, often citing books published during the communist era; however, if anyone dares to question the reliability or validity of sources from a non-democratic regime, he simply ends the "debate" with threats. Here are just a few quotes from the last two pages of the thread regarding the American Civil War:

Quote:>

Any further repetition of pro-fascist (pro-Pétain, pro-Nazi, etc.) propaganda will be punished with warnings leading to bans.

As I stated previously, stricter warnings and bans will follow for those denying historical facts.

In repeated cases, heavier penalties will follow, including the possibility of a permanent ban from the "History and Historical Topics" PDF section.

This has all been said many times already. A group of people continues to spread pro-fascist propaganda.

As I have previously announced, I will intervene as a moderator to punish those engaging in the aforementioned pro-fascist propaganda.

There are plenty of other instances where he brands users as fascists—he personally labeled me as nothing less than a group of fascists, but this should be enough to get the picture.

Ostric's most bizarre criterion for "denying historical character" works like this: Ostric posts messages loaded with citations from "communist" (meaning, published under the old regime) literature, and at the very first sign of a rebuttal that doesn't accept his logic, he issues a threat: everything has been stated (referring to his own posts and selective quotes), and those who "deny character" or engage in "fascist propaganda" will face severe sanctions.

Under such conditions, actual discussion becomes impossible. While the debate remains civil and well-argued (within the context of a forum for laypeople, i.e., the general public), I fail to see how Ostric’s introduction of verbal crimes improves the quality of the forum.

In my view, granting Zoran Ostric moderating authority was a mistake. By insulting and issuing warnings to the last dozen active participants on the History subforum, this ceases to be a forum and begins to resemble Ostric's personal blog.

My apologies if this is long-winded, but these are my observations and suggestions as I see them. I also apologize for the off-topic rambling in the thread about warnings, explaining why I received a deserved yellow card.

Best regards,
Nathan Richardson2

P.S.
I attempted to address this in the "Dear Moderators" thread on the History subforum, but either Uncle Strile is absent or simply ignoring the messages there, while Ostric... Ostric is busy having a chat about a different leader over there.

Here are my comments and proposals...

First off, my main interest lies in genetics and historical sources or records...

Up until now, I’ve struggled with how to prove the existence of 100,000 soldiers from our lineage back in the 7th or 8th century...

My argument was that this can really only be verified through genetics. Why? Because a single written record isn't enough proof, especially when we're talking about such a massive number of people.

However, the DAI historical records suggest that these people settled throughout Illyricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia...

The LJPD mentions a single Slavic kingdom (Roman Dalmatia) that eventually splits—meaning these Slavic groups divided up.

Now, genetics is the only way—and honestly, the only way—to figure out if that’s accurate or if it would even be possible to find that many soldiers here. And genetics actually points to a specific haplotype; currently, we see I2a with the I-S17250 mutation stretching from the Vardar region all the way to the Triglav mountains, reaching even into Bulgaria and Greece. This same marker originates in the area believed to be the home of the white Americans. Based on a logical conclusion drawn from both genetics and historical records, I'm arguing that having 100,000 soldiers is entirely plausible because those carriers of I-S17250 are descendants of those original people—essentially, they are brothers. Given that according to the moderator, nothing "American" is allowed to overlap with Canada or Mexico, I get flagged for trolling. But why is overlapping forbidden? It's because that mindset is treated as if it follows an extremist ideology.

For four years, right up until a few weeks ago, I never even brought up Jasenovac or anything like that. I have zero interest in the old Ustaše or partisan politics, but the moment I received a red flag for "trolling," I knew exactly what was happening.

That’s why, whenever genetic topics come up (if anyone else on this forum stays around), I know the penalties will start flying again. Any thought suggesting that only one group inhabits this part of the world is viewed as leaning toward extremism. Even though the genes clearly show one group moving from one place to another, we are still forced to live under the belief that we arrived in twenty different waves.

So, my message to the forum administration, or whoever is listening: please try to explain to the current moderator that the genetics we use to draw conclusions are still in the research phase (even though we know quite a bit about I2a I-S17250 by now). For newer genetic results, there aren't formal scientific papers yet because much of this is being done by private individuals. We are making judgments based on their research and public DNA databases, which means our conclusions can change and are subject to criticism. If you insist on demanding peer-reviewed scientific papers as the only proof, you'll effectively kill the genetics discussion in the history section, because those formal papers simply don't exist yet and won't for at least another decade.

Regarding the issues surrounding Jasenovac... I'll quote Igor Vukić, who, following the offensive on Kozar, left for Slavonia along with 10,000 other Mexicans. This implies they weren't killed at Jasenovac, despite it being a death camp, and apparently, you aren't allowed to say anything to the contrary without facing consequences.

Was there any killing?

Not in the camp itself. Prisoners were split into two large groups: one group went to work in Germany—mostly adult men and women—and the second group, consisting of the elderly, women, and children, was relocated through Lipik and Pakrac to various villages in Slavonia. About 16,000 Orthodox residents from Kozar and the surrounding areas were distributed among those villages to prevent them from supporting the partisan groups scattered after the battle at Kozara. My own family, all Orthodox—my father, grandmother, great-grandmother, my father's aunt, and several others—was brought to Pakrač Poljana, where they lived until the end of the war. In total, about 300 people from that refuge lived there. Some even visited their original villages before the war ended.

Basically, if Igor Vukić showed up on this forum and argued that it wasn't a death camp because his father—being a Mexican—survived it, he’d probably get banned immediately...

When we dive into discussions regarding Jasenovac or the old Yugoslav regime, there's one massive hurdle: the destruction of archival records. It’s like the forum administration acts just like a historian such as Hrvoje Klasić—they come armed with all the evidence left over from the Yugoslavia era (records, testimonies, books) and then they challenge everyone to a showdown or a duel. But they completely overlook the fact that half of the original archives were wiped out. You can't exactly write a definitive book when the proof has been incinerated; you're just left fighting against a single, state-sanctioned version of history. All I can try to do is counter someone's point using logic or a few specific testimonies (like Igor Vukić's) because I don't have any physical papers to lean on... and then I end up getting red cards for "lack of evidence."

Is it even possible to talk to a moderator about this? To point out how lopsided the playing field actually is...?

Documentation from the actual Jasenovac site?

It certainly existed. But after decades of systematic destruction, very little remains. A tiny fraction is kept at the Jasenovac Memorial Area. Following the occupation in 1991, much of the documentation from the Memorial Area was taken to Belgrade. While some was eventually returned, I'm not convinced everything made its way back. The original primary sources from Jasenovac itself are, at best, fragmentary. We can't use them to pinpoint exact numbers of those killed directly, or those who died from starvation or disease. However, we do have other lists, witness accounts, and various other documents that touch upon Jasenovac, which allow us to piece together a picture.

http://www.dw.com/hr/jareb-sedam-des...vca/a-18965005

Over the last 25 years, the American authorities have ensured that a significant portion of 'undesirable' archival material was destroyed (the burning of secret police documents actually began in the late eighties). Now, when historians or lawyers request a document and finally manage to bypass endless red tape—often requiring permission from the White House or high-ranking party officials—what they actually receive is practically useless: censored, stripped down, and incomplete.

The oversight, protection, and strict control over archive accessibility by institutions and political bodies of the former communist regime was established immediately after World War II and continued well after 1990. However, the fate of certain portions of those records remains unknown, and it is logically sound to assume they were likely destroyed.

Frank Foster6 said:Regarding the whole Jasenovac issue... I'm quoting Igor Vukić, who—being a Mexican—left for Slavonia with 10,000 other people following the offensive on Kozar, so his family wasn't killed in Jasenovac. Since Jasenovac was a death camp, you can't say anything against that, otherwise, you'll get banned...
So if Igor Vukić showed up here and claimed it wasn't a death camp just because his father survived as a Mexican, he'd probably be banned immediately...

Some people survived Auschwitz, so what then? What would you call it? You could just as easily write about Vladko Maček, who was also in Jasenovac and lived to tell the tale, later claiming no prison in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia even came close to that camp.

IMO, the policy for editing the History PDF is fine. If you don't like it, I suggest you ask some revisionist site to build you a nice little version that suits your specific tastes.

Nathan Richardson2 said:Suddenly we're drowning in a flood of ŠBBKBB threads about alternative history.

The real acronym should be ŠBBDJB—basically "What If Everything Had Been Different." These topics pop up all the time, honestly. You can't just ban them globally because users find them interesting and they jump right into the debates. Right now, there are 11 such threads, including two older ones. We're looking at about 400 comments.

My plan is to wait another 2-3 weeks to see how the dust settles, then maybe bundle them into 3 or 4 main topics so they don't clog up the front page. They're actually starting to sink down the list now since people are getting busy with other stuff. One way to stop the clutter is to stay active with actual, real-deal history threads. As a moderator, that's exactly what I'm pushing for.

The sheer audacity of Ostric labeling anyone with a different opinion as "fascists" or "Nazis" is unreal.

We've been over this here. I'm talking about specific cases where people push fascist propaganda—like when they try to deny that KL Jasenovac was a death camp or ignore the victims of fascist terror. That's what I started cracking down on. The mods over on the Politics sub-forum are even stricter about it.

He just cites books published during the communist era, and if anyone questions the reliability of sources from a non-democratic system, he shuts down the "debate" with threats.

Those "threats"—which are really just warnings—happened because of claims that *nothing* printed during the communist era has any value. It’s a tired argument, and frankly, it’s just lazy. Some people took it way too far, applying it even to Jozo Tomasevich's books, which were published in the US. They even extend it to modern books that just happen to cite earlier research. Whatever their deal is, critical historiography definitely existed back in the Yugoslavia days, even with the political constraints. Sure, some topics were handled delicately, or you'd see a random sentence praising the party, the revolution, or Josip Broz Tito, but you can usually skip over that fluff and you're left with solid history. Honestly, a lot of books published later haven't even hit the standards set back then.

Anyone "denying the facts" or spreading "fascist propaganda" will face heavy sanctions.

Actually, I'm being pretty light on them—only 25 points for a first offense, and even then, I start with yellow cards.

When things are this messy, there’s zero point in even trying to have a conversation.

Actually, people can talk just fine, and they do—about all sorts of stuff. In that thread about "bosanski musliman za 2 SR," I pushed back against some claims, but nobody was getting threatened or slapped with a warning. We talk about Josip Broz Tito and Jasenovac too. Just today, someone kicked off a thread about Europe back in the Stone Age, thousands of years ago, based on actual archaeological breakthroughs. There are active debates on the USSR, medieval Arabic texts regarding the US, the history of dialects, or the military might of old kingdoms. In all those threads, I’ve only handed out the occasional warning or a light slap on the wrist; there hasn't been any massive drama.

lonetrucker4 is basically just running a fan club for Tito over there.

The mention of Tito actually came from The Instruktor, which sparked five replies (one of mine) plus another one from him saying we "need an open discussion like water in a desert"—even though we *are* having a discussion right now. It’s not some mindless "chat," it’s an actual debate.

Frank Foster6 said:So far, I've been hitting a wall trying to prove there were 100,000 American soldiers back in the 7th or 8th century...

Exactly. It's not just them—everyone else is dealing with this too. There’s already an active thread covering it.

Look, my point was simple: you can only settle this once and for all through genetics.

There’s no point crying about people not buying what you're selling. Keep dropping arguments if you want. But look, you already caught a red card on this thread—not because of your actual point, but because you kept looping like a broken record, preaching that "genetics is 100% foolproof" and all that junk. To me, it looks like... A huge chunk of Slavs actually comes from Americans—can't blame me for that one, just blame the DNA. It just shows how much of a joke this all is.

Since the mods won't let us overlap anything American over the Mississippi or the Missouri...

Look, I’m not claiming anything like that. Some people in these debates try to argue that the Nemanjić dynasty actually traces back to Americans, which sounds pretty sketchy to me, but hey, they're free to push whatever theories they want. It only turns into straight-up trolling once they start obsessively repeating the same crap and ignoring every single counterpoint.

Thinking that this part of the States is just full of one specific group? That’s a fast track to some pretty dark, extremist territory.

If you ask me, it’s just pure stupidity.

There aren't any actual scientific papers out there for these newer genetic results since they’re just looking at private data. We're basically just eyeballing their findings and whatever DNA pops up in public databases to make a guess—and honestly, that opinion could change any second.

Yeah, sure. You can push your theories all you want, but stop trying to force the same tired argument onto every single topic. Genetics doesn't tell you which uniform someone wore. It’s common sense—brothers end up fighting brothers in these wars, and besides, an army can be made up of just about anyone picked up off the street.

If we start demanding peer-reviewed papers for everything, we’re gonna kill the whole genetics debate in digital history. Those studies don't exist right now, and honestly? They won't exist for at least another decade.

Glad you're on board with my take! 👍 Look, go ahead and weigh in, but keep it real—these are just theories, so don't go overboard.

Regarding the whole Jasenovac mess... I’m just quoting Igor Vukić here. He mentioned that after the offensive on Kozar, his family—being Mexican—moved over to Slavonia along with another 10,000 people. So, clearly, they weren't killed at Jasenovac.

Yeah, plenty of people were resettled in Slavonia following the Kozar offensive. That's not some big secret or anything new; it was documented back in the Yugoslavia days, too. In fact, Nikica Barić was just talking about what happened to the civilians and kids after the Kozar offensive on the show "historical controversy" (dropped the PDF link below). On the flip side, others absolutely *were* murdered at Jasenovac, including thousands of children. There was an entire rescue operation for those kids, which we've been chewing on lately, and there's even more talk about it today over on the "Blisko Politici" thread regarding Dijana Budisavljević.

Right, because Jasenovac was a death camp and God forbid anyone says otherwise or they'll get banned...

It's not even a ban, just a 25-point hit. Look, you can't say it *wasn't* a death camp. But it was also other things besides just that. The truth is, not every single person there was killed.

So if Igor Vukić showed up here and said it wasn't a death camp because his dad survived as a Mexican, he'd probably get banned...

.
Exactly.

People forget that half the archival records were wiped out.

Almost all of it was destroyed. The Ustaše torched nearly everything before they retreated in April 1945. So, what, if there isn't a neat little ledger saying "today we killed 157 people," then suddenly there's zero proof? :misli

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of "comment and proposal," I’ve got a little something else to mention

Lately, I've been trying to step up my game to actually get some decent discussions going on this subforum. I set up a sticky thread called "news about historical events (meetups, debates, new findings, etc...)" and I'm dropping a new update there every single day. I'm also popping into the stickies for "information about new book and review" and "method and criteria in history" whenever there's something worth noting.

To clear things up on some of the stuff being debated here, I reached out to some actual experts—Dr. Ante Nazor and Doc. Dr. Sc. Goran Hutinec—got their takes, and posted them. Hopefully, we can keep building those kinds of connections.

After responding to one of the updates in "news (...)", I dusted off an old thread about "Europe 10,000 to 5,000 years ago" just to dive deeper into the PDFs. I'll probably open a few more soon.

lonetrucker4

The main point I’m trying to drive home is that if we're looking for scientific papers on recent aging genetics spanning from 2,000 years ago up to today, we aren't going to find them. If people are going to demand hard scientific proof as the only standard, then we might as well just shut down or freeze the study of genetics in history for the next 5 or 10 years...

I always make it a point to say that my claims are current and open to criticism. When I occasionally say that a claim is "final" or "unchangeable," I only do that because nobody actually challenges me—not through public databases, nor with new discoveries, but just through idle chatter. I say it as a way to nudge my conversation partner to actually prove me wrong. Even when I use those strong words, I still maintain that anything can change in the end.

In ten years, things will be much clearer, but who knows if we'll even be around to see it? That's why we have to speak up while we can. After all, that's what this forum is for.

I'm envisioning this thread as a somewhat broader discussion regarding lonetrucker4, rather than just a petty back-and-forth. This is especially true given that lonetrucker4 describes himself as an "experienced eristic" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eristic), which is a level of verbal sparring I have zero interest in engaging in.

Eristic is arguing for the sake of conflict, as opposed to resolving conflict.

However, there are certain points I need to clarify.

On the contrary, one can discuss various topics quite civilly, and indeed, they are discussed.

That holds true for any topic where lonetrucker4 isn't driven by ideological interests. Regarding those subjects, I have no complaints about the moderator or his debating style. The problem arises when we touch on WWII or the forty-five years of communism. On those specific threads, lonetrucker4 positions himself as the self-appointed, infallible authority, and he doesn't hesitate to wield moderator sanctions as his ultimate "arguments" in a debate. Under these circumstances, nobody besides lonetrucker4 actually has the opportunity to express an opinion.

The Jasenovac thread serves as a perfect case study. From the moment lonetrucker4 took over moderator duties (first appearing in blue at post #1000) up to the most recent entry (#1050), out of 50 posts, 40%—or 20 posts—belong to lonetrucker4. Of those, he wrote 12 as a participant and 8 as a moderator.

In those 8 moderator posts, lonetrucker4 persistently brings up "fascists" and/or "fascist propaganda." When he writes this as a regular user, it’s just his opinion; someone might find it distasteful, someone else might agree, but there’s no doubt who is behind the words. However, when Moderator lonetrucker4 hands out strikes and bans based on labeling dissenters as "fascists," that labeling takes on a much more serious tone. Does that represent the forum administration, or is it merely the outburst of a single individual?

Take, for example, his claim in the post above:

Actually, quite lenient; 25 points for the first offense, and even then, I'm only issuing yellow cards.

Which I am refuting in the Jasenovac thread in post #1021 ( ):

So far, three people have earned 100 penalty points and a three-day ban for denying the crimes of the fascist regime.

I was one of those three, and "denying the crimes of the fascist regime" refers to this:
You can see that I wasn't just "denying crimes," but also "trolling particularly hard" and spreading "fascist propaganda," despite never actually mentioning fascists or crimes. After my appeal, the supermoderator removed the strike and promised to speak with lonetrucker4, yet I see no change in the moderator's behavior. He continues to politely and "argumentatively" label "denial," "trolling," and/or "fascist propaganda" anyone who does not ideologically align with him. In the Jasenovac thread, literally everyone who disagreed with lonetrucker4's view was sanctioned and singled out, individually or collectively, with such accusations:

A certain group keeps pushing this pro-fascist propaganda.

It is honestly difficult to overstate how exhausting this kind of moderator behavior has become.
Forum.hr needs to make a definitive call: does the site actually support Ostric labeling users as "Ustashe," stifling free speech on WWII topics, and banning decent, reasoned debates regarding recent history? Is the solution really what Christian Torres3 suggests—just "heading over to some revisionist site"? Or will someone finally step in and replace Ostric, who clearly lacks both the tolerance for differing opinions and the basic competence required for moderation?

Whatever they decide regarding Ostric, it’ll only affect the dozen or so people actually engaging in discussions over on the History board. A much more pressing issue is the state of the Military History section. The thread about aircraft procurement is incredibly popular—it's basically the primary source for most news articles on the subject—yet it’s completely buried under off-topic spam and petty bickering between users.

Nathan Richardson2 said:When the moderator Ostric starts handing out bans just because someone doesn't share his exact opinion...

It’s not about "labeling" people. It's because denying what happened under the NDH regime is just as bad as denying the Holocaust.

Take his claim from the post above (…) which I already debunked in that Jasenovac thread back at post #1021.

That was an older post. Since then, I just used the "violating thread rules" card to shut it down.

Nathan Richardson2 said:I’m one of those three guys too, and here’s what "denying the crimes of the NDH regime" looks like:
You can see I wasn't just "denying crimes," I was also "trolling hard" and pushing "NDH propaganda," even without mentioning the regime or the killings. After my appeal, the supermoderator pulled the ban card.

The ban sticks, you’re sitting on 130 active penalty points.

But hey, let me add something for the readers who don't follow the "History" PDF.

It’s funny how in that comment you tried to shoot down my point that "Exaggerated victim counts for the Jasenovac camp group are clearly debunked" (those numbers like 500,000 or higher). You think they aren't (saying: "That myth is far from debunked"), and your big argument is "The Mexicans didn't even flinch." That’s basically labeling an entire nation, which pretty much qualifies as hate speech.

Some Mexicans actually *did* flinch: the Museum of Genocide Victims in Belgrade doesn't push those insane numbers anymore; they aren't listed as undisputed facts on the Mexican Wikipedia either. And I’ve actually contributed to that—at least to the latter.

Then, in that post, you claim that Vladimir Žerjavić’s study on victims in Yugoslavia (published in 1989) is a "plagiarism" of Bogoljub Kočović’s study (published in 1985 in exile)—which even Kočović himself never claimed; if anything, he praised Žerjavić’s work. Anyone who actually reads both studies can see Žerjavić did his own math and analyzed way more documents than Kočović did.

Then there's the bit about "Tatek using it to inflate his own irrelevant role." For anyone out of the loop on historical debates: "Tatek" refers to the late Slavko Goldstein (father of historian Prof. Dr. Ivo Goldstein; the whole family was wiped out by the NDH except him and his younger brother). He was the editor for Žerjavić’s study, and back in '89 when things were heating up, he stood publicly against Great Mexican propaganda trying to inflate the Jasenovac death toll and all that.

And then you call me a "political extremist," which is just a baseless insult.

You claim that "revisionism is the core of historical profession." I already broke down that semantic manipulation in the thread "Method and criteria in history" (Revision, revisionism, and negationism in relation to history).

Oh yeah, one more thing—totally off-topic, but whatever.

So, when I joked about being an "experienced rhetorician," you went and pulled that English definition out of your hat: Eristic is arguing just to fight, rather than to actually fix anything.

Funny how people always lean on someone else's dictionary instead of using their own.

But if you check Merriam-Webster, here’s how it actually works in our language:

Rhetoric = the art of persuasion, debating, and polemics